Minor Threat's music and iconographic album cover have been an inspiration to countless skateboarders since the album came out in 1984. And for members of the Nike Skateboarding staff, this is no different. Because of the album's strong imagery and because our East Coast tour ends in Washington, DC, we felt that it was a perfect fit. This was a poor judgment call and should not have been executed without consulting Minor Threat and Dischord Records.

Interestingly, Minor Threat´s singer has no problems with p2p network downloads of his work according to this interview.

Whoa, that is a GREAT interview. I've never heard of this guy Ian MacKaye, but I love him after reading this. I don't agree with everything he says, but the way he runs the record label and the way he lives his life is inspriational. I will read this one a few times.

Yeah, Minor Threat is actually quite important and famous in that scene, his additude fairly representative. Interestingly, a lot of undergound electronics labels operate in a way based on that additude; our own way of touring is a traight copy of the way pioneered by Black Flag (except with a lot less fights).

I'm going to have to rethink a lot of stuff now. He really put things into perspective for me.

I just have one question: If I were to adopt his attitude, that you make music because you love it and you want people to hear it, how does this affect nerdy little bedroom musicians like myself? I mean, I have a musical goal - to complete an album. Not to sell, necessarily, but so I have something that I am proud of, that I can listen to at night from beginning to end, and think "Wow! I can't believe I did this!" Since I was eight, I've had this mentality. It wasn't until other people heard my music when I was 18 that someone suggested that I should think about selling it and and sharing it with other people.

One thing I am interested in is the transition people like Ian and Fugazi made from making music together to playing in front of people. Why did they decide to do that? Because someone probably asked them to. And he clearly stated that he didn't care about money when that started happening. That's all well and good, but I can't perform in front of people.

Therefore, it is harder for me to share my music with others, whether I have making money on my mind or not. Thankfully, forums like this and P2Ps are available to me. But that's it. So why am I not satisfied? Deep down, I'm a lazy, money-hungry, capitalist pig?

He's right- being a musician means you would keep working on music whether you made a millions of dollars or not. Musicians don't ever think, "Well, I have everything I need now because of my millions of dollars, so I can stop writing music."

There is something more important than money that every musician wants: to be recognized and appreciated. Oprah (of all people) once said, “The greatest pain in life is to be invisible ... we all just want to be heard … we all are just regular people seeking the same thing … we all just want to know that we matter … we want validation …we want the same things.”

If I am indeed a little nerdy bedroom musician who doesn't perform live and doesn't have any interest in making money, I would still want to be appreciated. The people here at this forum giving me great feedback and compliments is one of the best feelings, but sometimes the only way to show an artist 8,000 miles away that their music is important to me is to give them money. How can I say, "Thom Yorke, you're doing a great job" or "John Mayer, I think you are really good at the guitar but the sound of your voice makes me want to drive a fork into my skull"?

The Hague Acid gods "Unit Mobius" felt the same way. They put in their tech rider that they prefered to play from below, next to or behind the stage. I think they once played from a dressing room using a realy long cable.

When that´s not possible they´d take the typical teKno stance and hang a camo net over the stage and put a big strobe on the table in front of them. If that unapropriate you can always demand a total blackout and clip on a small flashlight. Or you could rent models/ men in animal suits/ burniong pigs to distract all atention from you.

Of cource if you don´t want to you don´t *have* to play live at all...._________________Kassen

If so; get a "nostromo speedpad n52" (cheap at games stores), set all that stuff to the keys. Take the closest knob box that outputs midi and midi map the living daylight out of interesting parameters.

Dim the lights, jam.

Repeat for a week.

make adjustments to have more fun and interactivity.

Repeat some more.

Play at a birthday party.

Open for a friend.

Start asking money.

use money to get a soundcard with multiple outs and a few guitar pedals to put on everything that´s not the main stereo output. Start thinking about a laptop.

Practice more.

ask more money.

etc.

(or you could do what many people do, meaning faking. In that case I recomend simply using Winamp or a mididisk player over a cracked version of LIve since those cracks tend to fail at inconventient moments)_________________Kassen

I'm sure I can get Fruity to do all that stuff. It just sounds pretty boring. I'm working on some 8-bit animation, so there's something I could put up on a screen. I'm just not into live shows, and "the spectacle." I am building an electronic drumset, so we'll see what happens with that...

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum

Please support our site. If you click through and buy from our affiliate partners, we earn a small commission.